Students embrace co-operative housing as a solution to rental and cost-of-living crisis

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Priced out of student accommodation and the rental market, some young people in Canberra are turning to co-operative living to make ends meet. Australia has been slow to embrace the social housing model, but advocates say it could help tackle the cost-of-living and house crisis.

Transcript

00:00It's double curry night in Unit 16, but this isn't a typical share house, it's a housing

00:12co-operative run for and by a group of 30 Canberra uni students.

00:17By the end of my first year my wallet was feeling really dry and so I applied to the

00:21co-op because I saw it as a cheaper place to live.

00:25An inner city room costs $187 a week to rent and is indexed to youth allowance.

00:32Residents also pay $60 into a monthly kitty for shared groceries and expenses.

00:37I think that there's a sense that a co-op sounds like a commune but it really just feels

00:44like a bunch of share houses where everyone just works together to achieve goals and to

00:49provide for each other.

00:50As the cost of student accommodation and private rentals continues to climb, so too does demand

00:56at the co-op.

00:57For disadvantaged students, students coming from kind of low income backgrounds and stuff,

01:01it's become truly untenable to live on campus.

01:05After moving out of a pricey student lodge and a bad rental experience, the co-op saved

01:1119-year-old Ben Mason from a future of insecure housing.

01:15I've seen my bank account not be drained down to zero every week and it's, yeah, it's quite

01:20freeing actually.

01:22Co-operative homes work by giving every member a vote in their governance.

01:27There are only a few hundred across Australia, mostly in the social housing sector.

01:32In some of the Scandinavian countries co-ops can make up about 20% of all housing stock

01:37so there's obviously potential for growth there to become a bigger part of Australia's

01:40housing system.

01:41For these students, saving money is only part of the appeal.

01:45They say co-op living builds community through shared meals, events and purpose.

01:51And research shows it's not just young people who can benefit.

01:55There are groups wanting to set co-ops up and currently not being able to access the

02:01stock needed to do that.

02:02Advocates are calling for more government investment for the sector to grow.

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